


in the grey light of dawn

by aflightoffancy



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, also, batfamily fluff, but mostly drawn from pre reboot versions of the characters, handwavey continuity, in that its based on n52 events, no actual deaths but references to canon not-deaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-08
Updated: 2014-11-23
Packaged: 2018-02-24 14:28:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2584667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aflightoffancy/pseuds/aflightoffancy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Damian wakes up and finds out the person he died for isn't there anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. a robin wakes

**Author's Note:**

> I had a thought. It devolved into this.

When he first wakes, there is fire and pain and he can hear people fighting.

A scream crawls its way out if his throat. He can't. He can't. Everything is too much. He can't focus on what's going on. He can't work out where he is. He can't tell who he's meant to be fighting.

(He's alive. He's alive. He's _alive_.)

He's aware of being held, and the grip is familiar and firm, and he knows he's going to be alright.

He hears his name, and it's not the voice he was expecting. But he feels safe. Comforted.

When the darkness pulls him back in, he doesn't fight it.

\--

When he wakes the second time, he's in the cave.

Bright lights everywhere. A monitor attached to his chest. Bruce sits in a chair by his bed.

“Father?” His voice is soft, but it’s enough to bring Bruce to his side.

“Damian.” His voice sags with relief.

“Mum… Mother she…” his hand presses against stomach, the scar feels aged and old but the memory of steel ripping through his flesh, the taste of warm blood bubbling up his throat, is still painfully recent. “I thought she’d stop it.”

Bruce pulls him into a tight hug, and Damian lets out a grunt of surprise.

“I did too. But I’m glad you’re here now. However it happened.”

“Grandfather?” he asks, because logically there are only so many ways he could be here.

(He shouldn’t be here.)

(He was dead. He was _dead_. He remembers dying.)

Damian can feel Bruce nodding against his shoulder. “He stole your body,” he hesitates, “But I. I can’t hate him for bringing you back to me.”

Damian relaxes. His father’s arms, familiar and firm, anchoring him, keeping him safe.

“It was you,” he realises. “You were the one holding me when I first. When I woke.”

Bruce pulls back to see his face. “Of course. I was right there with you.”

“I thought it was Dick,” he says with a shrug, not bothering to point out that before it had almost always fallen to Richard to hold him while his father hesitated and kept his distance. Not that he minded. His father is a _warrior_. Grayson's insistence on physical contact is ridiculous, and unnecessary. But it was dependable. “Where is Grayson?”

His father stiffens. He does not look away, but Damian can tell holding his gaze take an effort. And Damian knows Bruce doesn't want to tell him something.

He thought Batman was meant to be skilled at keeping secrets.

“Damian.”

“Where’s Grayson?” he asks again. He can hear his voice getting louder, more insistent. His father was the one who held him. Dick wasn't there. Dick has always been there. And he's still not here now.

“It can wait." His voice invites no rebukes.

"Is he off world?" His hands curl into fists, nails digging into his palms. He is a warrior. It's embarrassing. Weak. What does it matter if Grayson has better places to be?

But. He is a detective as well. And he knows his father. And he knows Grayson. And he knows something is wrong.

Bruce hesitates. "We don't need to talk about this now. 

"Does he. Is he... angry with me?" He hates how small his voice sounds. "For getting myself killed?"

"Damian. Damian, no." His voice is soft, and he moves to fold Damian into his arms once more. Damian pulls away. "He loved you. He would be here if he could."

 _Loved_.

"Loved?"

Something shifts. And it feels like the whole world has been knocked askew. He waits for Bruce to correct himself. But he knows he won't. Bruce. Batman. His father. Doesn't make a habit of misspeaking.

"Not. Not now." It occurs to Damian that his father sounds tired. _Loved_. Damian isn't sure he can bring himself to care.

"What happened to Grayson?" His voice shakes.

"I…" There's another hesitation. He can see his Father steeling himself. Making a decision. "I couldn't save him."

His nails dig deeper into his palms.

 _Loved_. 

\--

Damian is sitting on the grave when Tim finds him.

"What do you want, Drake?" he asks, channelling as much arrogance and disdain as he can. It almost works, but with his grass stained knees and tear stained cheeks he looks every bit a ten year old boy. Tim didn’t know Damian was capable of looking so young.

“Thought you could use the company.”

“ _Your_ company?” Damian sneers.

Tim doesn’t bother protesting. He remembers this. The raw angry hurt. The pain. He hadn’t wanted to speak to anyone else either. But at least he had the Titans to turn to if he changed his mind.

He’s not sure who Damian has.

(There was a boy, he thinks. But he doesn’t know if the boy knows about. Well. Any of this.)

“Better me than someone you actually like.”

Damian looks over at him, defensive, offensive. Weapons at the ready. Looks at Tim, and crumples.

“Months. I was only gone a few months before he -” Damian cuts himself off. “If I’d been there -”

This time it’s Tim that cuts him off.

“If you had been there, he still would have died. And it would have hurt just as badly then as it does now. Bruce was there, and he couldn’t save him. It. God.” He looks over at Damian, “You couldn’t have done anything but watch him die.”

“But I didn’t,” Damian says carefully, testing out the words, “Because I was dead. And now he’s dead. And I’ve been brought back to life. But he’s still dead.”

\--

The lives and deaths of heroes. He’s never. He knows people who have lived and died and been resurrected.

His grandfather, for one.

But heroes, too. Who cheat death over and over.

They’re mostly superhumans. Killed by magic and aliens and.

But not all of them.

It doesn’t make sense.

He gets a second chance. _Todd_ got a second chance.

He was just a boy with a sword through his stomach.

He was an Al Ghul. But.

Todd was just a boy who got blown up. 

And he woke up. He woke up, without anyone interfering. 

(He woke up brain damaged. He woke up without his memories. He woke up murderous. But he _woke up_.)

And Grayson is dead. And still dead. And not going to wake up.

(There’s a part of him that hopes. But he’s been assured there’s a body in the grave.

His father won’t let anything interfere with it.

He hates him for that. Loves him for that.

Whenever he stops, he can still. It’s like drowning. Burning. Choking on lava.

He doesn’t want that for Richard.

But he doesn’t want him in the ground either.)

"Not everyone gets a second chance." Drake had said, and he sounded tired, sad. "And we don't get to choose who does or doesn't come back."

"You would have chosen Grayson."

"I would've chosen you both," Drake replied dutifully. Drake could always out lie everyone in the family.

"I would've chosen Grayson," he says.

Because he did. He chose him. He saved him from his mother’s monster. He hadn’t. He’d thought his mother would spare him, but he’d known there was a chance. But it was worth it because Dick was going to be okay.

And then Dick turned around and got himself killed anyway.

Grayson was the best of them. 

He’s pretty sure even Superman would agree.

(He’s pretty sure he and Superman have very different reasons for considering Grayson the best, but the point still stands.)

And he’s dead dead _dead_.

While Damian is alive alive _alive_.

What sort of world brings back an assassin and leaves Dick to rot in the ground?

“Dick would have chosen you.” Drake had said. But what he would’ve chosen ceased to be relevant the moment he got himself killed.

\--

He goes to Dick’s apartment.

It’s.

Empty. Lifeless.

He should have. He knew that his identity had been compromised. It was only logical that his place, any place with any connection to Richard Grayson, would have to be stripped of anything that might lead to any other heroes.

The place smells of dust and disuse.

He can see the spaces on the walls where posters have been torn down, photos hidden away.

The closet is bare.

The sheets on the bed are not Grayson’s.

He curls up on them anyway.

It’s the last place Grayson ever slept.

Grayson. Who loved him. Who was the first person who ever.

His mother. Mother was the first, but she sent his brother to kill him. So maybe she never did. And Father. He knew his father loved him. But Grayson chose him. Made him Robin.

Made him his  _partner._

Grayson, who trusted him.

Grayson, who he tried to save.

Grayson, who he died for.

Who died anyway.

He curls up on the sheets that Grayson never slept on, in a room that no longer holds anything of his, and knows this is as close as he’ll ever get to Richard now.

He curls up on the sheets and lets himself cry.

 

 


	2. another flies home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> spyral has fallen; it's time for a not so dead bird to make his way back to the nest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> with oracle and batgirl! because hand wavey continuity means there's nothing saying I can't.

 

It's all Dick can manage not to collapse as soon as he makes it into the cave.  

He's home. He's. He can be Dick Grayson again. 

"Bruce," he calls out, "Bruce, I'm done. They're done."

And then he's there. Cowl pulled back. He hasn't quite worked up a smile, but his eyes are soft, and his voice is warm when he finally says his name. Dick knows if he reaches out Bruce will let him hug him. There’s something hesitant in the way he’s holding himself, and Dick suspects he’s considering whether or not he should reach out first. 

Dick closes his eyes and steps back. 

"Never again," he says, his voice hard. "Never again, you understand?" 

"Dick," and he knows he's talking to Batman now, "I wouldn't have asked if it wasn't necessary."

"I know. I do. I wouldn’t have gone if I didn’t. But, Bruce, never again, do you," he freezes. 

There's a kid in the cave. There's a kid in the cave in a Robin costume. And he looks. He looks exactly like Damian. 

Not in a. Jason looked like him, and Tim looked like Jason, and Damian looked like Tim. At first glance, the costume does a very good job at making them all look like Robin and less like themselves. If you don’t know what to look for, anyway.

Dick knows what to look for.

"Grayson?" The boy asks, and his voice. It's soft and uncertain, but it still sounds like him. 

"Damian," he manages at last, his voice rough and uneven. Because it can't be. Because Bruce is going to look at him with pity in his eyes and introduce this new Robin who looks so much like his son. 

But he doesn't. 

The Robin. _Damian_. Makes a small wet sound. And he's not entirely sure who moves first, but he's holding him firm against chest. 

"You were dead. Father told me you were dead." Damian murmurs against his chest.

"Right back at you, little D," Dick replies, and his hands tighten around Damian, because he saw the body. Damian's body. And the blood spilling out onto the floor. He remembers being surprised by how much blood there was. He remembers the blood soaking into his costume as he carried Damian’s lifeless body away. "How are you here?"

"Grandfather," he mumbles. 

"If I'd known," Dick shoots Bruce a look. "If I'd known, nothing could have kept me away from you."

Damian settles for a moment, and Bruce looks. Not apologetic. Dick knows if he asks Bruce will tell him that that's exactly why he wasn't told. That the benefits of the mission far outweighed any grief or resentment caused by believing each other dead. And Bruce doesn't make a habit of apologising for making tough calls. Still. He looks remorseful. 

He feels Damian stiffen just a second before the boy wrenches back and away from him. 

“What do you mean if you’d known?” Damian's glare is poisonous, "You were fine. The whole time you were fine, and you _chose_ to let us believe you were dead.”

“Damian, don’t blame Dick -” Bruce begins.

Damian spins around to face his father, “I blame both of you. You knew. You had to know, and you _lied_ to me.” He takes a short, sharp breath. “And I know you had to be the one to convince him. But, if you expect me to believe Grayson is incapable of saying no -”

Damian pulls off his mask and cape, and drops them in a pile on the floor. 

“I am going to change. I don’t want to wear your colours tonight.”

Dick and Bruce are silent as Damian storms off. 

“You told Damian I was dead?” Dick asks at last.

Bruce sighed. “We agreed. Everyone had to believe it.”

“ _Damian_ , Bruce.”

“It’s a bit late to be going over this now.” 

For a second, Dick looks like he’s going to argue, and then a grin starts to spread across his face.

“He’s _alive_.”

“I know,” Bruce replies softly. Wondrously. “All of you are alive. All of you are safe.”

Dick glances over towards Bruce. “I’m still mad at you. I can’t believe,” he shakes his head, “It’s really good to see you again.”

\--

Damian is _angry._ Damian is furious. Damian really wishes he wasn’t so mad at Father and Grayson so he could go out and punch people. 

“Master Damian,” Alfred calls out, “I thought you’d disappeared for patrol.”

“I’m not patrolling tonight,” he snarls. 

“I’m sure your father had a perfectly good reason for not taking you out,” Alfred attempts to soothe him. “Why don’t you come into the kitchen and I’ll make you some cocoa?”

Damian snorts derisively. “Father didn’t bench me. I decided I am not going to be Robin anymore. I won’t patrol with a Batman that doesn’t trust me.”

“You’re giving up Robin?” Drake asks, coming up beside him. “Hey Alfred, I thought I heard mention of cocoa.”

It occurs to Damian that Drake would be a perfectly acceptable person to punch. But then Alfred would probably withhold the cocoa, and well. He hates Father and Grayson more than he hates Drake right now. And Drake will probably back him on this. 

“Grayson is in the cave with Father.”

Drake and Alfred stare at him blankly for a moment, before pity transforms both of their faces. 

“Master Damian,” Alfred says, voice soft and gentle. 

“I am not mistaken. I am not making this up. Grayson is in the cave with Father. Because Grayson is _alive_.”

“Dick’s alive?” Tim asks, voice filled with cautious optimism. “And you’re angry about it?”

“Grayson is alive,” Damian spits out, “because he was never dead. And Father knew the entire time.”

He takes a small amount of joy in the way room falls suddenly silent, Drake and Alfred both momentarily frozen. At least he wasn’t the only one Father lied to. 

“Dick wouldn’t -” Drake starts, eyes wide. He looks vulnerable, young. It’s not a look that suits him. 

“He did.” Damian interjects. 

“If you’ll excuse me, I think I need to go to The Cave,” Alfred says, his voice quieter than usual. 

“I’m coming,” Drake says quickly, already moving away from the kitchen. 

Damian stays. 

He’s spent months haunted by the sound of Dick’s laugh. By the memory of Dick giving him the uniform. Of their first patrol together. And their last. Of Dick. Dying. Waiting to die. By the thought that Dick was still in the ground while he’d been granted a reprieve. 

He missed his _hugs._ He’d _cried_ for him. 

And he’d been alive the whole time. 

His father had watched him and _known_ Grayson was alive the whole time. 

Right now, Damian wants nothing to do with either of them. 

He hopes, viciously, that Alfred and Drake tear them apart. 

But. He’s _alive_. He’s alive. And he’s real. And he’s downstairs.

Damian is _angry._ Damian is furious. Damian really wishes he wasn’t so mad at Father and Grayson so he could go downstairs and. And. Be downstairs.

All he’s wanted for so long is a chance to see him One More Time. And now he can. And now he can’t. Because he’s.

Damian is. 

Damian wants to punch something. 

\--

“It’s true!” Tim’s voice echoes through the cave.

“Hey, Timmy,” Dick can’t keep the grin off his face, because, God. He missed his little brother.

Tim doesn’t smile back. 

“What the hell, Dick? Did you just think we hadn’t had enough funerals this year?”

“Tim.” Bruce keeps his voice low, the warning clear. 

“I, too, would like an answer. As glad as I am to see you, Master Richard, I would have thought we were beyond such a farce,” says Alfred, voice cool, disapproval clear. Hurt, too.

Dick winces. Even Bruce seems to flinch under Alfred’s gaze.

“It was safer this way,” Dick manages to keep his voice firm. Holding his ground in the face of popular dissent is something he’s had way too much experience with. Tim looking at him with hurt and betrayal in his eyes is something he’s long since gotten used to. (It hurts. And he thought, hoped, that they were past this. But. It’s not a new hurt). Alfred. Alfred very rarely sends those level stares his way. 

But he holds his ground. And Bruce holds it with him. 

(He's much too old, and been working with him much too long to still feel that swell of joy, but sometimes he thinks no matter how old he gets he’s always going to feel like a child where Bruce is concerned.)

(Usually it's a bitter thought, spewed out by his mind in the middle of a fight. It's not quite as distasteful like this.)

"It was not a decision we made lightly," Bruce adds. 

“We weren’t trying to hurt you.” It’s a hollow argument. They knew they’d be hurt, and they were willing to go through with it anyway.

“But the mission comes first,” _for Bruce, for Batman, not for you,_ Tim keeps his voice flat, eyes still wide and fixed on Dick. "I... I'm really glad you're alive, Dick." 

But he doesn't move any closer. 

Dick does. And Tim might not hug him back, but he doesn't pull away either. 

"I'm sorry, so sorry, but I'm here now." He slips one arm around Alfred's shoulder, pulling him in towards them. Alfred makes a startled noise, but he doesn't sound displeased. "You too, Alfie. I missed you like you wouldn't believe."

\--

He goes out wearing black. It’s much more practical than the Robin colours anyway. 

It takes three attempted robberies for Batgirl to find him.

“Kid, I don’t know who you think you are,” she growls, and if he were anyone else he thinks he might be slightly intimidated. He hadn’t realised she was capable of being frightening. Then, softer, “Robin?”

“Go _away_ , Batgirl. I’ve got this covered.”

“More than covered. You know you just have to incapacitate them, no one’s going to thank you for the extra brutality.”

“Tt. I don’t do this for praise.” Not from cops. Not from the people of Gotham city.

She hesitates a moment before asking, “What’s with the new look, Little D?”

“Robin business,” he snarls.

“Well, _technically._ ”

“Family business, then. Which you are not,” he says, maybe more forcefully than necessary.

There’s another question poised at the tip of her tongue, but before she can get it out, she turns away. 

“Well,” she says at last, “Care to work out your family business while stopping a couple of wannabe bank robbers?”

“Was that Oracle?”

“Nope,” she lets the P pop, and he has a feeling he’s being analysed. “Proxy. Why d’you ask?”

“If you can, you should tell Oracle to call the Cave. There’s someone there she should talk to.” 

She frowns at him, but asks Proxy to pass on the message. 

It’s tempting to go back. Just to watch Barbara put Bruce and Dick in their place. It’s not. It’s. They’re supposed to be heroes. And Damian knows Batman keeps secrets, that he plots and plans and. There should be lines. Family should still mean something. 

(Which. He isn't sure when he started thinking that. He isn't sure he likes it. He's pretty sure he can blame Grayson for that too.)

\--

Barbara hesitates over calling The Cave. It’s her night off. Dinah’s cooked dinner. Well, ordered take out. And if Bruce wants to talk to her, he’s a big boy, he can pick up a goddamn phone all by himself. 

But, she keeps getting stuck on the fact that _Damian_ wants her to call. Damian has almost never asked anything of her. And Steph thought the request, vague as it was, worth passing on. 

She sighs, “If this ruins our night, I’m going to personally tear Batman a new one.”

Dinah laughs, “Can I watch?”, and hands Babs the laptop.

For a moment, she thinks that after all that, no one’s going to answer. And then. And then. 

“ _Dick_?”

“Barbara,” he breathes, face alight. 

“Dick.” Because he’s _there_. 

“Barbara,” he says again, and he’s smiling.

“God, I could kiss your stupid face.”

He laughs, “Hold on to that feeling.”

“Before it gets swallowed by _where the fuck have you been_ and _why would you put us through that, you absolute asshole_?”

“That would be it,” he says with an exaggerated wince.

“It helps that I can take a fair guess. There’s not many places you can hide from Oracle. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that your return coincides with the collapse of one of them.”

“But…?”

“But everything else can wait, Boy Wonder. I’m just really glad you got home safe."

He grins, and it hurts how much she’s missed that smile.

“I could’ve lost you, Dick,” she says after a moment, voice soft.

“Never happen. _Never_ ,” he replies. 

And she laughs. “You owe me lunch, tomorrow.”

“I’ll countdown every minute.”

\--

“Look,” Batgirl says, as they make their way across town, “If Bruce is being a giant jackass. Well. I have some experience with that.”

"Do you have experience," he asks, as they size up the bank robbers, "With people who are willing to let everyone they know believe they’re dead?"

"Robin," she replies, as she puts the first guy down, "Have you forgotten who you're talking to?"

\--

After the cops have cleaned up, she grabs french fries and milkshakes and sits him down on the edge of a rooftop.

"No one asked me if I wanted to go to Africa, but there was a year where I could have called home, and I didn't."

"Even though it hurt Drake? And Cassandra? And your mother?"

"I _failed._ Everything I'd worked for, everything I'd wanted, had been stripped away. I wasn't sure what I'd be returning to. And Dick. The entire world now knows he's Nightwing. His life as Dick Grayson is over. You were _dead_ , D. Everyone else could manage without him. And Bruce. Bruce needed him to take a mission that meant he got to put off dealing whatever his life has become. I mean it’s a pretty compelling offer," She leans over and elbows him in his side. "I get that it sucks, you're allowed to be pissed off. But, Damian, Dick's _alive._ Don't forget to be happy about that too."

“I… I missed him. I thought -”

“I know,” and for a second she looks like she might hug him. He stands up quickly, and finishes the milkshake with an undignified slurp. 

“I think I’d like to go back to the cave now.”

\--

Damian takes two steps into the cave before Dick scoops him up into a hug. He makes a small noise of protest, but his heart’s not really in it.

“I’m so glad you came back.”

"I’m glad you came back, too," he mutters.

Dick smiles, and well, Damian can’t quite stop a matching smile appearing on his face. 

“I still can’t believe you’re alive. And well. And here,” Dick gushes.

“We should really start a Dead Robins club,” Steph says.

“Isn’t that everyone but Tim?” Dick asks.

Bruce seems momentarily startled, and sends a panicked glance Tim’s way. 

“Perfect,” Damian announces, and Tim groans. 

Dick laughs, and pulls Damian over towards Tim, and eventually settles with his arms around both of them. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am, but this. This is nice. And you can’t tell me I’d normally get away with hugging you both, especially at the same time.” He ignores the glares they send his way and simply sighs over their heads. 

Alfred seems genuinely pleased. Even Bruce is struggling to hold back the beginning of a smile. 

“Should we move this up the manor?” Alfred asks.

“Well, someone should probably go on patrol, and I would hate to break up all this brotherly bonding,” Steph says. Tim rolls his eyes at her, but doesn’t offer to go in her place. 

She disappears out the door, and Alfred disappears to the house, and Tim and Damian pull away to do the same. 

Bruce doesn’t move, Dick finds himself lingering with him. 

“Are you coming upstairs, or?”

“There’s a call I need to make first.”

Dick studies him for a moment. “Hong Kong?”

Bruce nods, “It feels like it’s been a long time since I knew that all of you. I just. I need to see.”

Dick slips an arm around Bruce, and feels him lean infinitesimally into the touch. 

“Mind if I stay?” And Bruce nods again. “You know,” Dick says, as they wait for the call to connect, “Before everything Tim was keeping track of where Jay was making base. I’d be surprised if he didn’t still know where to find him. If you felt the need to check in on him, too.”

Bruce looks across at him, but before he can respond, Cass’ smile fills the screen. 

“Brother.” It’s rare that he gets to see Cass look surprised.

And it’s the first time someone’s actually called him that since he got back. It feels good. Right. 

“Hey, little sister. Guess who’s back?”

 

 


End file.
